A Monster's Eyes
by Edamessiah
Summary: 'When they call you a monster... that'll always hurt. You gotta grow ice on your heart and steel your temper, always. It's the one thing that'll get to you every time. No guarding against that.'


She thinks the body is a bush at first, such are the sweet minds of babes. Rosy-eyed, I reckon. They can't imagine a world where people die for no reason, so they just see whatever they need to, to stay sweet. But everyone's got a limit, and she can't lie to herself about what she sees when she rolls it over. About what falls out. About the colour of blood at the break of dawn, the smell that comes out of it like nothing she's ever smelled before. About the way it dyes the shallows of the pool red. I'd have kept her sweet, if I could. But I was late. Better witchers than me show up on time.

Her scream must wake up the whole village, even from out here, and it shocks me enough to throw my balance for a second. The beast gets a claw in, rips a little flesh off my shoulder, a new scar atop the old. I dance with the blow, roll back with it, and bring my sword up. The drowner falls halfway down the blade and gurgles black bile in my face, milky eyes wide with shock. I kick it off and rush to the girl.

'Come away from that, sweetness. Don't be touching that – there we go, good girl. Come on.' She looks up at me with cat's eyes: wide and wary, wet with tears, golden-green in the amber light.

 _Come here Oliver. Let me look at you. Let me see those eyes. You got a monster's eyes now, boy, and folk's not like to let you forget it. Reckon you're gonna see a whole different world to them through those eyes'a yours._

'Don't look at it. Look at me, that's it, come on now. You got a name?' She remains mute. Waste of time to be asking questions. She goes limp when I hoist her up to carry her back, sliding my sword back into its sheathe. I glance back at the bodies, and the one she found, wonder whether it's a brother or an uncle or a father she's lost. She's gotta have a family somewhere. They'll have to be told. I don't like dealing with clean-up, but...

 _Quit your hollerin', no daddy's coming for you now. He don't want nothing to do with no mutant. That's you. Mutant. Cry all you like, lad, and cry it out now, cause you'll be hearing it the rest'a your life._

I get back into the village, back to a little crowd, and the eolderman – or eolderwoman, I suppose - watches me apprehensively, and a little hopefully. I hand the girl over, keeping an eye on her. The child regards me steadily, looking from my pouch-belt to my swords, from my swords to my eyes, and back to the pouches. The elderly woman before me presents a coin purse.

'There's the agreed price, not a penny less or more. Is it all clear?'

'Some bodies you might need to retrieve. Whose girl is that?'

'Soldier-men came through here a few years ago, ploughed their way around the village girls. Left her behind in a farmer's daughter, and only one of 'em survived the birth. Farmer was looking after her until... well, you seen it.'

'She'll need somewhere to go.'

'You offerin', witcher?'

I sigh through my nose. 'I'm no nurse, nor a teacher, nor a witch. I don't take in children.'

'Must get lonely in that shack o'yours, though. All the way out in the woods, by yourself. Girl needs a home. You must need a hand every now and then. T'ain't unheard of, a witcher's apprentice. And you'd be doin' us a favour.'

'Sounds like you've already decided.'

'Won't force you. It's still your choice, master witcher.'

'I've heard that one before.'

 _You won't all survive the trials. That's the way of it. Some of you will die, and I won't dress it up, boys – it won't be a pretty death. The world's a hard, cruel, ploughing mess but it needs witchers. If you survive, that's what you'll be. Witchers. And we witchers don't get pretty deaths when we go, neither. But it ain't something we can force. You gotta make this choice yourself._

Two years I've been looking after her, now. Rosi. She's a quiet thing. Keeps herself busy, makes herself useful, gives me somewhere warm with food to come home to after a contract. And I can't pretend the company's not nice. Around her seventh year's when the questions start. Inevitably. Her curiosity had to overcome her shyness eventually.

'What's all them potions you're always making?'

'Don't go drinking them now, I told you about that.'

'I won't, sir, just wondering.'

'They're magic brews. Make me stronger, close my wounds, let me see in the dark, all kinds of fancy nonsense you don't need to worry yourself about.'

'What about them oils?'

'They're for my swords. Make 'em hurt a little more, things like that.'

'Why do you got two swords, sir?'

A common question, this one. She seems to forget each time she asks. 'Steel and silver. For solving different problems.'

 _'_ Why d'you need different ones?'

'Magical beasts, like the ones I hunt, they got different bodies, different blood in them. They're not from this world, and the silver burns 'em, like when you grab the pan on the stove. Men don't need nothing fancy, no magic metals. Just a sharp edge and a hard swing.'

 _A witcher has two swords. Know when to draw which: steel for men, silver for beasts. No matter what anyone tells you, no matter the job, above all else remember this. They're both for killing monsters._

'Can you teach me how to use them?'

'You're here to keep my stove warm and my cupboards full. What do I need you swingin' swords for?'

'Please sir, please, I promise I'll be good and I won't get up to mischief with 'em or nothing! I want to hunt monsters with you!'

'Rosi, you can't do that. And if you _did_ hunt monsters, you'd give up wanting to do it.'

'Can't I be a witcher? Like you?'

'They only take in boys.'

'Why?'

'Just the rules, sweetness.'

'They's _stupid_ rules. I'd be a good witcher, I reckon. I know all the herbs, and oils, and suchlike. I could do it!'

'Not that simple, my girl: you gotta be mutated. They scramble your insides around with potions and poisons, make you something other than human. You remember when you ate that loaf of bread and I smelled it even though you got rid of all the crumbs?'

A little ashamed: 'yes.'

'Witchers smell things, see things, hear things that people don't.'

'Is that why you got them cat's eyes?'

'I got a monster's eyes, sweetheart. _You're_ the one with cat's eyes. All big and round like they could just swallow the world.'

 _All the better for seeing a crouching wolf in the deepest woods, when the clouds hide the moon. All the better for hearing a ghoul chewing on the stump of a corpse's arm half a mile away. All the better for smelling out a cockatrice in its nest, even in gales and storms. Naught can hide from a witcher for long. But you'll never hide those eyes of yours from anyone, Oli, so get used to 'em._

One day, when she's nine, she comes home timid. Like she's ashamed. Like she's sad. I ask what's happened.

'Girl in the village was talking about you, sir, saying all kinds of meannesses. I hit her cause she don't have no business saying that about you, not after all you done. The others all called me a freak, a witcher's pet beast. Said I can't play with 'em no more.'

'I'd hoped you'd be spared that, Rosi. I didn't mean to be a burden on you, you know.'

'You ain't a burden, sir. _They's_ the burden. It's their fault! You're kind, and you've always been good to me. You think I'm too young to know, but I know. I do. And everyone's still scared of you, still unkind, no good to you at all. They's would all be _dead_ if you weren't around!'

'Wise little thing, aren't you sweetness? You got the world all figured out. No-one's kind to witchers, lass, that's just the way of it. We hunt monsters, and to them that puts us in the same category as them. It's the rules.'

'Still stupid rules.'

I laugh.

'What you laughing at, sir?'

'You, my girl. Somehow, I've gone and swapped a child for a wise woman, or somesuch.'

'You should take your sword to 'em, sir, that'd show 'em all. They deserve as much.'

'Only one thing that'd show them, Rosi. It'd show them they were right.'

 _People call us callous and cruel. They reckon we're just mercenaries, us witchers, and they're right. We trade work for coin. Nothing wrong with that. They won't expect you to feel anything, boy, and most of the time you won't. But when they call you a monster... that'll always hurt. You gotta grow ice on your heart and steel your temper, always. It's the one thing that'll get to you every time. No guarding against that._

'They're not right, not ever, not about you. I don't think you're a monster, sir.'

I hadn't cried since I was a boy, but I cried for her.


End file.
